John Elway: Five things we learned from end of season presser
John Elway knows he must be better
The second major thing we gleaned from this entire press conference is that Elway knows he needs to do better putting the right players in place for his coach to have success.
The reason Elway almost felt the need to fire Vance Joseph this year was because the team lost eight straight games, and could have potentially done even worse than 5-11 if not for a comeback win against the Colts.
But that doesn’t mean Elway would have been immune from blame either way. He understands that this roster is one he assembled, and this quote was as clear of an indicator that Elway is not blind to his shortcomings:
"I gotta do a better job getting him (coach Joseph) the right guys on the football field and making sure he has the best opportunity to be successful."
— Sayre Bedinger (@SayreBedinger) January 3, 2018
John Elway
The admission many of you have been waiting for.
About a month ago, I wrote about how it wouldn’t make sense for the Broncos to fire Joseph given their quarterback situation, and I think that played more into the decision to keep him than we know.
I put together a list of reasons why keeping Joseph was the right call, and discovered that the Broncos’ starting quarterbacks had an average rating of 61.6 in their losses. That is inexcusable and not really Joseph’s fault.
You can gameplan all you want, but the head coach cannot be personally held responsible for incompetent quarterback play.
Elway rightly fell on the sword for that one, and vowed that they will make it right.